An Experimental and Theoretical Study on the Tailings Dam with Geotextile Bags
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The followings should be addressed:
- The paper should be proofread as there are many issues in the writing.
- Introduction should be improved, there are many paragraphs which could be linked together.
- Also, the authors should improve the text which demonstrate the novelty of the work (Lines 136-142).
- Section 2.1 and other sections: Again, there are many paragraphs which could be linked together. There is no need to have a separate paragraph for every two or three lines of writing.
- Line 155: why the consolidation time of the bags are taken equal to 4, 8, and 12 days? Is there a scientific reason for this? Authors need to provide justification
- Line 171: Equation should be capitalized (i.e., Equation 1).
- Line 177: Table should be capitalized. Also, check other places, every figure, equation, and table should be capitalized when followed by a number (i.e., Table 1, Figure 1.etc).
- Line 177: Authors stated the water content results are shown in the table, however, there are also other parameters reported here and it is not clear how the authors have calculated these parameters? There should be reasonable explanation of them before presenting the results.
- Authors need to discuss the device of the shear test used in the test (shown in Figure 4). What are the dimensions? How the load is applied.
- What is the methodology of testing used in the shear test. Again, the paper is silent about this.
- What is the strain rate used in the shearing test and why?
- What is the strain rate used in the compression test and why?
- Readability of Figure 5 should be improved. Increase the font size of the axes and the legend.
- The legend of Figure 5 should start with capital letter (i.e., Vertical pressure). Figure 8 as well.
- Section 3: Authors need to provide a validation to their derivation to show that the derivation methodology is correct.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Lines 383-387: The chapter 5 named "Discussion" is completely irrelevant.
Some variables are not described in some figures and some equations, for example:
- Fig. 10 (line 297) - h
- Eq. 3 (line 307) - phi
- The angle in the equation 4 (line 323) is not in Fig. 11 (line318)
Are the equations created by the authors or taken from the literature?
Line 178 - The average angle for 4 consolidation days is different = 24.0875 therefore 24+-1 and the friction coefficient is 0.4471 respectively 0.44 +-0.02
Line 302 - What mean cot in eq. 2?
Line 403 - In the conclusion, the authors calculate that the increment of safety factor is approximately 19.7%. But I computed from Fig. 14 (line 377 or 381) - (1.647/1.367-1)*100 = 20.5%. Where am I making mistake?
Line 370 - Who created the program in MATLAB?
There are many unknown symbols in equations.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
In this article, the friction performance as well as the compression properties of the geotextile bags were investigated. To do so, sliding, shear, and unconfined tests were used. Besides, the analytical study was also carried out to evaluate the stability of the considered dam. The subject matter is interesting and valuable. I only have a few comments that may help the authors to improve their work:
1- The introduction and the literature review should be separated. The current introduction, has lot of details that must be removed and presented in another section.
2- Research significance should be provided right after the introduction part. One or two paragraphs will be ok.
3- Fig. 14 could be presented with more details. For example, add a legend for the color of lines.
4- The relation between shear strength and pressure stress could be presented with a higher order regression equation. In the current work, a linear equation was obtained. However, a 3-order function is more fit with the results (see Fig. 6). Please explain your response within the article. Is there any limitation for using higher order functions here?
5- The existing discussion part is not suitable for a research article. Extend it with more details and information.
6- What are the benefits, disadvantages, and the limitations of the work? Please discuss about such cases.
7- The same problem with the conclusion. Please note that, these two parts (discussion and conclusion) are so important. Don’t leave them with a few texts.
8- In Fig. 7, please define the elements presented in the figure.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
Check the value of the inner friction angle and the cohesion of the tail that appeared in row 366 of the manuscript.
Check the spelling of the word sheer in row 368 of the manuscript
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors did not address my comments. Below is my reply to on the authors points. Please see the highlighted reply.
Point 1：The paper should be proofread as there are many issues in the writing.
Response 1：We are sorry to confuse you. We checked and revised the whole paper as shown in the revised manuscript.
Reviewer Response: There are still many issues. Authors should use a proofreading service to enhance the quality.
Point 2：Introduction should be improved, there are many paragraphs which could be linked together.
Response 2：Thanks for your suggestion. We linked the paragraphs and improved the “Introduction”.
Reviewer Response: The comments has not been fully addressed. Authors need to improve.
Point 3：Also, the authors should improve the text which demonstrate the novelty of the work (Lines 136-142).
Response 3：We rewrote the part as shown in line 136-157.
The successful applications of geotextile bags in the tailings dam solves the problem of difficult damming of fine-grained tailings, and improves the stability compared with conventional damming method. However, the mechanism of improving the stability of the dam body is not clear. it is urgent to do some research to provide theoretical support for engineering application of the talings dam with geotextile bags.
In this paper, the friction performance and compression properties of the geotextile bags with different degrees of consolidation were studies through the slope sliding tests, direct shear tests and unconfined compression tests. In the traditional tailings dam stability calculation, the Swedish slice method and the simplified Bishop slice method are recommended by the specification. But still using the methods to analyze the stability of the tailing dam with geotextile is not reasonable. Therefore, on the basis of the failure characteristics of the tailings dam with geotextile, an innovative stability analysis method based on simplified Bishop theory is proposed.
Reviewer Response: Authors need to polish and proof read the added text.
Point 4：Section 2.1 and other sections: Again, there are many paragraphs which could be linked together. There is no need to have a separate paragraph for every two or three lines of writing.
Response 4：We have linked the paragraphs together.
Reviewer Response: I checked the pagrapahrs still not read well and most of them are short scentences.
Point 5：Line 155: why the consolidation time of the bags are taken equal to 4, 8, and 12 days? Is there a scientific reason for this? Authors need to provide justification
Response 5：In actual construction, the moisture content of the tailings in the geotextile bags decreases with the increase of consolidation time. When the moisture content reaches about 15%, the construction of the upper layer of the geotextile bags can be carried out, and the stability of the tailings dam is the worst at this time. With the growth of time, the stability continues to improve. In order to study the stability of tailings dam under the most unfavorable condition, 4 days, 8 days and 12 days were selected for the indoor test, and the corresponding moisture content was 17.8%, 16.9% and 15.5% respectively.
Reviewer Response: The response of the authors still do not really explain why 4 days, 8 days, and 12 days have been selected. Thus, this points has not been addressed.
Point 6：Line 171: Equation should be capitalized (i.e., Equation 1).
Response 6：Thanks for the comment. We have revised “ equation (1)” to “Equation (1)”.
Reviewer Response: This is fine.
Point 7：Line 177: Table should be capitalized. Also, check other places, every figure, equation, and table should be capitalized when followed by a number (i.e., Table 1, Figure 1.etc).
Response 7：We are sorry for our negligence. We have revised “table 2” to “Table 2” in line 177. We also checked other palce and found no similar errors.
Reviewer Response: This is fine.
Point 8：Line 177: Authors stated the water content results are shown in the table, however, there are also other parameters reported here and it is not clear how the authors have calculated these parameters? There should be reasonable explanation of them before presenting the results.
Response 8：In Table 2, the friction properties of the geotextile bags with different moisture contents is studied by the slope slip test. The moisture content of tailings(17.8%, 16.9% and 15.5% is different with different consolidation time(4, 8, and 12days). Four parallel experiments are carried out for each moisture content, and four critical angles will be obtained. The average value of the four critical angles is the Average angle. According to Equation (1), the Friction coefficient can be calculated.
Taking the test with a consolidation time of 8 days as an example, we measured its water content of 16.9%, and carried out four tests in total. The measured critical angles were 28.62°, 26.23°, 27.89°, 29.3°, and the average value was (28.62+26.23+27.89+29.3)/4=28.01,
, the Friction coefficient was 0.53.
Reviewer Response: Again, it is not clear how the paramaters in table 1 have been obtained.
Point 9：Authors need to discuss the device of the shear test used in the test (shown in Figure 4). What are the dimensions? How the load is applied.
Response 9：We added the dimensions and the loading method as shown in line 201-210.
The principle of the shear tests of the geotextile bags is basically the same as that introduced in Soil Mechanics [38].The dimensions of upper and lower pressure plates are 0.8m×0.8m ×0.1m (length × width × height) to provide sufficient rigidity. Four bags in the dimension of 0.5m×0.5m×0.1m (length × width × height) which were consolidated outdoor for eight days were used. The vertical load and horizontal load were applied by the hydraulic jacks, with the horizontal displacement measured by the dial indicator. Referring to the compression test method of concrete block, considering the strength and flexibility of the geotextile bag, the load loading control method is adopted, and the loading rate is 2kN/s.
Reviewer Response: The authors mentioned wroge lines number in their reply. This shows that they did not polish their reply and paper well be resubmit.
Point 10：What is the methodology of testing used in the shear test. Again, the paper is silent about this.
Response 10：We added the methodology of testing used in the shear test as shown in line 216-223.
Reviewer Response: Again, the authors mentioned wroge lines number in their reply. This shows that they did not polish their reply and paper well be resubmit.
Point 11：What is the strain rate used in the shearing test and why?
Response 11：Referring to the compression test method of concrete block, considering the strength and flexibility of the geotextile bag, the load loading control method is adopted, and the loading rate is 2kN/s. It is added in the line 206-209.
Reviewer Response: Justificaition of using this rate is missing. Authors need to justify.
Point 12：What is the strain rate used in the compression test and why?
Response 12：Also referring to the compression test method of concrete block, considering the strength and flexibility of the geotextile bag, the load loading control method is adopted, and the loading rate is 2kN/s. We added the sentence in the line 257-259.
Reviewer Response: Justificaition of using this rate is missing. Authors need to justify.
Point 13：Readability of Figure 5 should be improved. Increase the font size of the axes and the legend.
Response 13：We have increased the font size of the axes and the legend in Figure 5.
(a) (b)
Figure 5. The curve of shear stress and shear displacement under the different pressure
Reviewer Response: This is fine.
Point 14：The legend of Figure 5 should start with capital letter (i.e., Vertical pressure). Figure 8 as well.
Response 14：We have modified the legend of Figure 5 and Figure 8.
Reviewer Response: This is fine.
(a) (b)
Figure 5. The curve of shear stress and shear displacement under the different pressure
Figure 8. The axial stress-strain curve
Point 15：Section 3: Authors need to provide a validation to their derivation to show that the derivation methodology is correct.
Response 15：By setting the load of the geotextile bags part to 0, the tailings dam with geotextile bags will become a conventional tailings dam, and the safety factor can be simplified to
, which is the safety factor formula calculated by the simplified Bishop method in soil mechanics, which proves the correctness of the formula we deduced. This part is added in the line 384-387.
Reviewer Response: This is fine.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The article is not perfect.
Author Response
We are very grateful for your comments. We have improved the manuscript. All the revisions in the revised manuscript were edited by Soctt O’Brain, who is an English native speaker and an English editor part-time working for Xuzhou YU-YI Science and Technology Consulting Service Co.,Ltd.
Reviewer 3 Report
Accept as is.
Author Response
We are very grateful for your comments. We have improved the manuscript. All the revisions in the revised manuscript were edited by Soctt O’Brain, who is an English native speaker and an English editor part-time working for Xuzhou YU-YI Science and Technology Consulting Service Co.,Ltd.
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments have been addressed and the paper could be accepted.
